'Guild Wars 2' interview: ArenaNet on the future of Tyria

Guild Wars 2 has proven nothing short of a revelation in the massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game sector, attracting scores of newcomers to the genre with its accessible take on the subject matter.

Six months down the line, the title has sold more than 3 million copies - making it the first game of its kind to reach the milestone in this space of time - but developer ArenaNet is refusing to rest of its laurels.

Digital Spy caught up with lead developer Colin Johanson to find out what the world of Tyria has in stores for players in 2013 and beyond.

Like most MMOs, Guild Wars 2 was addled by server problems at launch. Is this something you were fully prepared for?"If you look at the MMO launches of the last five or six years, I think that we've had one of the smoothest by far. We definitely were prepared for the fact that we would have issues, because you can never replicate what can happen when millions of people hit your servers at once. As much as you try to replicate that in beta, it's never quite the same.

"We had a lot of people who slept up ready for launch so they were able to work very, very long hours when we were up and running to make sure that stuff got fixed as quickly as possible. Looking back on it, we had some problems like anyone else who has ever released an MMO, but we addressed them really well, and I was really proud of the team for how quickly they managed to fix stuff."

The game went on to be a phenomenal success from there, with more than 3 million copies sold. How does this figure compare to what you forecast?"It is well above what we forecasted. I think 'humbled' is the best word I can give to describe where we are at right now. We are blown away by the fan response and really excited about it. We're told that it is the first MMO to get to 3 million copies sold so quickly, so that's really exciting for us. I think that speaks volumes about where the game is at and where we can take it in the future.

"We're just really excited to be at that point, but will keep building from here. We're not content to just say, 'We've sold a lot of copies, we've done our job'. Instead, we're really busting our butts to make the game better and better every month."

How did launch sales compare to those of the original Guild Wars?"I don't have the exact numbers so I couldn't say for sure, but I would guess that it's probably sold at least three-to-four times faster than the first Guild Wars. As I don't have the figures I can't be specific, but I can definitely say it sold a heck of a lot faster than the original, and we're thrilled to see the second game do this much better."

Roughly what percentage of your fanbase are newcomers to the series?"I can certainly say that we have seen a ton of new fans. We've seen a lot of people who are just fans of role-playing games and this is the first MMO they have played. I think that that's really compelling. I think we've created a world that people who love RPGs can easily get into and it happens to have other players in it who can help them along the way and make it more exciting.

"A lot of the elements that make MMOs not appealing to fans have been removed from Guild Wars 2. You're never running around in the world and another player can run up and kill you or anything. We've removed all of those elements, so other players only help you and make the game more fun. That's made the game a lot more compelling and easy for people who love role-playing experiences to get into."

What has been the biggest challenge since the game has gone live?"I think the biggest challenge is that we've transitioned from a company launching a game to a company supporting a game, and that means we are going from a production company to a service company, and you operate very differently when you're providing a service.

"Players are constantly demanding new content and new experiences, and everybody wants to see the game grow and blossom to something evening bigger than what it started as. We have a lot of pressure to live up to. There's definitely a sense of having to make the game better every month and adding new content to it, and really growing the world.

"Some of the pressure is self-imposed, but I think that's the biggest challenge - living up to the expectations of what this game can be, not just at launch, but six months, a year, two years later, where it feels like it's that much bigger of a world. It launched as one game, but it turned into two or three games all living in one world that you can experience. That's our hope down the road."

What are the most common new feature requests you receive from the Guild Wars 2 community?"One thing I've learned over the years is that everybody wants something different. The biggest thing for us is looking at what makes sense for Guild Wars 2, and there are a couple of major focuses for us. One of them is building on this concept of a living world. We want to add the experience for our players that you log into your favorite role-playing game and every time you log in you can experience something.

"The world is constantly changing around you. There's a map you recognize, and you come back and a bridge may have been destroyed and enemies have completely taken over that area. The map is constantly changing every month, so it really feels like you're playing inside an incredible TV show or movie experience that is constantly changing.

"That's a big focus for us and we've had feedback from our players saying they would like to see more permanent changes to the world. We've recently kicked off what we call or 'Living Storyline' - a narrative that plays out kind of like your favorite TV show, literally driving the story forward so the plot of our game is constantly changing and evolving as we go forwards.

"We think that's really compelling. We don't know anyone else on the market who is offering anything like that. You're playing your favorite RPG, and you get to continuing playing the storyline as it develops over months and years, and you get to be a part of that world and watch it change."

Would you consider adding control pad support to the game?"Right now, there are some backend ways for you to do that. The game does support things like an Xbox controller. You have to do a little bit of niggling to get it to work, but it does work. It's something I've used at the office a few times and it's pretty fun. If a lot of people are looking for that to become even easier to use, we definitely could play around with that more, but you can do it right now."

Hacking has always been prevalent in the MMO sector. Is this something that concerns you? What kind of measures do you have in place to ensure your users are protected?"I think that no matter what, it is always going to concern us. As an MMO studio, you will always find yourself battling against hackers, botters and cheaters. Those people will always be out there and the more popular your game is, the more you will have to deal with that.

"Since we've sold as many copies as we have, we've dealt with far more people trying to take advantage of the game and the user base than we did with the first Guild Wars. But as a result of that, we've hired a lot more staff and built an internal security team. That group is working 24/7 to moderate the game, support our players, deal with hackers and botters, and we're at a point right now where those groups are almost non-existent. They'll always get in for a little while before we find them, but we're getting really good at catching them and getting rid of them.

"The biggest challenge is that their tactics always change. They're always morphing and changing how they try to attack our game and attack our players, so we have to stay one step in front at all times. We're really focused on doing that and providing the best possible focus to our players that we can."

Do you think the game have a bright future in eSports?"I definitely do. When we first showed the PvP at gamescom a couple of years ago, we set it up over in the eSports section and we did that intentionally because we really wanted to send the message that this game will be a serious online sport at some point. The response we got was overwhelming. We had six-hour-long lines at one point, and a lot of the best PvP players from around the world turned up to play it and gave really positive feedback.

"Where we're at with that right now is we are trying to build the core base of the PvP experience in Guild Wars 2 and make sure that is really solid to provide a strong fundamental experience for our core players. As we get that in place and we are satisfied with it, we are going to start rolling out additional steps to be building on that base, building on the eSports elements and then backing that up with major competitions and tournaments.

"If you look at the MMO space in particular and RPGs, there really isn't anything out there that offers that competitive experience that gamers are looking for. Primarily, there are more MOBA games, first-person shooters, and RTS. There's really a place for us in that environment. I think we were pretty successful with Guild Wars 1. Our ambitions for Guild Wars 2 are huge for what we want to do with PvP in the future, and we think we are going to carve out a very large place for us in that environment."

We've seen a few in-game events such as the Halloween festival and the Winters Day celebration. Can we expect more of these in 2013?"Absolutely. This is kind of building on the living narrative concept I talked about, where we want to have this live storyline that's driving the story of the game. Some months, that live storyline will just be the story of a festival or a holiday, where it might tie into that festival or holiday that's going on. Certainly in Guild Wars 1 we celebrated Halloween and we celebrated Winters Day, and we had a summer festival that we did each year.

"In Guild Wars 2, we're going to go a little bit bigger than that. We're going to do a lot more of these special events and holidays, and look at doing more global holidays as well and celebrate some that people might not know about to spread awareness of them to the entire world. Our plans are pretty ambitious. We want to build on these past successes and tie it into our living story and the narrative driving the story of our game world.

Sony has just unveiled its new console, and Microsoft's won't be too far behind. Do you think there could ever be a place for Guild Wars 2 on consoles?"We did a little bit of investigation on the current generation of consoles, that's something we played around with, but our focus right now is making Guild Wars 2 the best PC game that we can. That's really where our time and energy is devoted. At this point, that's all we are worried about.

Do you have an estimated life cycle in mind for Guild Wars 2, or are you playing things by ear?Seven years later we're still supporting Guild Wars 1, we still have a team dedicated to the game and we're still doing updates for it. We're going to keep doing that in the first game while people are playing it, and the same will be true for Guild Wars 2. We're going to massively support the game and keep giving out free updates for everyone to experience, and that will continue forward for as long as people love our game.

"Guild Wars 1 is still going strong seven years later, and hopefully Guild Wars 2 will be going strong seven, 10 and 14 years later, and will evolve into the future of what MMOs can be."